River Cities, City Rivers

Dumbarton Oaks Colloquia on the History of Landscape Architecture #39

by Thaïsa Way (Editor)

Cities have been built alongside rivers throughout history. These rivers can shape a city’s success or cause its destruction. At the same time, city-building reshapes rivers and their landscapes. Cities have harnessed, modified, and engineered rivers, altering ecologies and creating new landscapes in the process of urbanization. Rivers are also shaped by the development of cities as urban landscapes, just as the cities are shaped by their relationship to the river.

In the river city, the city river is a dynamic contributor to the urban landscape with its flow of urban economies, geographies, and cultures. Yet we have rarely given these urban landscapes their due. Building on emerging interest in the resilience of cities, this book and the original symposium consider river cities and city rivers to explore how histories have shaped the present and how they might inform our visions of the future.

418 pages, Hardcover

Published June 4, 2018

Reviews

[Kerry · Rating 2 out of 5]

Comprised of many different case studies analyzing individual cities' relationships to their rivers over time. I learned a few historical tidbits and read of some plans for future development. Would have preferred at least an attempt to bring all of the studies together into a bigger picture analysis / closing thoughts.